Despite that dubious status, however, the Kentucky Republican can
take solace in the fact that he seems to be in good shape for
re-election in 2014 — even when matched up against potential movie-star challenger Ashley Judd.

McConnell's 55 percent disapproval rating, and
his net approval rating (-18 points) are both the worst marks for
any U.S. Senator polled by PPP. Only 37 percent of Kentucky
voters surveyed approve of the job McConnell is doing in the
Senate.

McConnell's staff fired back at the results on Twitter Tuesday, linking to an article from former George W.
Bush pollster Jan van Lohuizen in which he argues that
automated pollsters like PPP can overestimate disapproval
ratings.

"And of course we use the same methodology on all of our Senator
approval polls, and on that level playing field McConnell is most
unpopular," director Tom Jensen tweeted.

But while PPP found that only 59 percent of Republicans
approve of McConnell, the Republican Senate Leader is able
to weather this unpopularity in a re-election matchup
because Republicans and Independents are not willing to abandon
him for a Democrat. In a theoretical matchup with Judd, for
example, PPP found that McConnell would still earn 78 percent of
the Republican vote, and lead Judd 48-32 with Independents. He
even captures 25 percent of the Democratic vote.

Still, McConnell leads by only four points in a hypothetical
matchup with Judd and other Democratic candidates, indicating
that he remains a vulnerable target in 2014.